The expansion path of community electric business is becoming clear: first deep and then the pavement

Every journalist na from Beijing

The concept of O2O has been heating up since last year, and in many related fields, community O2O have received high attention this year. In mid-October, the community worry-free and love fresh bees announced by tens of millions of dollars in financing, the same period, ding-dong community evacuated from Beijing office, the line of business tightening back to Shanghai, after its previous because of the 100 million Yuan Angel investment has attracted much attention. Under the concept tidal wave, is the community O2O profession's ice fire blend.

Community 001 founder, CEO Shaoyuan accepted the "Daily economic news" reporter, said the community 001 on the line is to meet the needs of the community through electronic means, the platform's initial position is to do community electricity, long-term positioning is to do integrated community service providers. The current electric business "no warehousing, light logistics, not deep involvement in the supply chain", will be different from the supermarket as a landmark, radiation around 5 kilometers within the community, forming a different independent operator circle.

O2O analyst Huang told reporters that the independent operation of the business circle is bound to require more human input, and once the self-employed logistics, the model will be relatively light weight. In the long run, with the increasing cost of human resources, Community 001 should be a technology-driven company as the direction of development. From the perspective of the industry, the existing paving and deep-tied path are two different expansion logic. As a result of the surfacing style of the case in the compact area, the community O2O market or more suitable for the first selection of a region to do business model pilot, if proved feasible to further spread to a wider range.

Community 001: Operating 5 km independent Business circle

October 13, the community worry-free announced the completion of a round of 20 million U.S. dollars financing. Official website information shows that the community has now opened the operation of a total of 56 cities, service categories include take-away, fresh, domestic, maintenance and so on. It is also understood that the community as a platform side, in addition to gather the community around the various types of service merchants, the logistics system is responsible for the main areas of distribution work. By contrast, 001 of the Community's approach is to focus on shopping as a breakthrough, build localized operations and distribution teams, and direct contact with users.

Huang to the daily economic news reporter said that, from the background, the O2O industry is due to the line of convergence, "pure Internet projects increasingly no opportunity." Community O2O can be understood as the aggregation of a number of subdivision O2O industries, as the most recent area of daily life, for both capital and entrepreneurs, are "the most appropriate community entry point." But even with the community as a consumer scenario, each side of the subdivision of the field and the path are different, not to mention the industry pattern, from the model, roughly includes: To solve the "last 1 km" Problem of retail dealers, such as community 001; similar to the mobile end of the classification information aggregation platform, such as the community worry-free; Laundry and other vertical areas into the market, such as e home clean.

Shaoyuan, the daily economic news reporter, said community 001 of the initial position is to do large-scale online supermarkets, the practice is with the offline business super cooperation, the operation of the map to the radiation around the 5-kilometer division of the business district, each business district independent operation and equipped with including orders customer service, in the field pick up, the distribution of three of the front-line staff. The Distributor is responsible for running back and forth within the delivery point and business circle to complete the 1-hour delivery service. In addition, different business circles have different partners, combined with their respective community characteristics and consumption levels, commodity prices in different commercial circles sometimes there will be differences.

In addition, Shaoyuan repeatedly said that the older people are the Internet "forgotten" group, did not really enjoy the benefits and convenience of the network, for this reason, the Community 001 of the user positioning is not young people, it is focused on the 35-year-old ~65 between the age of this group. The goal is to take shopping as the first step in addressing the electronic needs of the community, but also to face the difficulties of the traditional retail and electrical industry. In the past, the location of the supermarket is 3 kilometers of radiation around the area of ~8 kilometers, "about 3 years or so will be able to bring profits (earn) back", now is another scene.

In the interview process, Shaoyuan pointed to the wall of Shanghai map told reporters that the map of the 12 colors of Pushpin on behalf of different brands of Ultra, Pushpin color is not enough. Not only that, in the city of some residents in the gathering areas, is "six feet" or even "seven feet" separation. Based on this, the bottleneck of the supermarket is mainly: first, the price, the promotion form, the SKU (Stockkeepingunit, the smallest inventory unit) is equal to the qualitative serious; second, the rent, labor, supply chain and other costs increase; third, the working day is basically the morning and evening traffic volume, forming a "dumbbell-style" passenger After the impact of the electric dealers, most supermarkets "net" attempt unsuccessful, marketing methods have not been a breakthrough innovation. Electricity quotient level, the user main body is younger, the flow grows to a certain extent will meet the ceiling, the competition under the line advertisement resources will cause the promotion cost to rise with it, but the transformation effect under the multiple competitions is no longer than before.

The "Last 1 kilometers" game of severity

"Daily economic news" reporter learned that at present, the Community 001 of cooperative Merchants a total of more than 4,000, shopping channels have web sites, micro-letters, telephones and the latest online app, partners in addition to supermarkets, but also include some brands, suppliers and so on. Nationwide, the city has already opened a total of 12 of the electricity service, daily orders of over million, customer unit price more than hundred yuan. Among them, the early development of the Beijing area has a total of 26 business districts, accounting for 001 of the total number of community 90%. Other cities are still in the expansion period, the two quarter of this year's development of Shanghai's existing 10 shopping district.

However, Shaoyuan said, the community 001, although doing retail business, but not deeply involved in the supply chain link. To solve the "last 1 kilometers" distribution problem, and to improve service quality, will be in the logistics and distribution to do the necessary input, the development of point-to-point "light logistics." Community 001 Existing staff is more than 2000 people, most of the front-line staff, of which, the number of distribution staff in the first line of employees accounted for up to 1/2.

For the Community 001 "no warehousing, light logistics, not deep involvement in the supply chain" and the independent operation of the Business Circle mode, Huang analysis, not a backlog of inventory of the correct thinking, can reduce a large part of the cost, is the advantage, but "light logistics" is relative to the main line of logistics. In China, the socialization of logistics from the development of soil and monitoring the quality of service, the construction is immature, the O2O significance of the logistics, once the choice of self, the model will become heavier. and the independent operation of the business circle has the necessary manpower to pay, in the long run, when the scale of the larger, in China, the growth of human resources in the background, the first-line staff cost pressure will increase, so the Community 001 development direction should be to become technology-driven companies.

Shaoyuan said that the cost of the Self-built logistics distribution system will be increased, the countermeasures are to be introduced through the late introduction of other services category cost-sharing. Specifically, the Community 001 at the moment the core of the business is shopping, uniforms, wearing badges of the distribution staff positioning is "community housekeeper", in the completion of distribution work, but also to help users complete the garbage, change light bulbs and other simple things. Thus, in the acquisition of user trust on the basis of long-term positioning is to do integrated community services, so that the distribution staff with multiple posts.

To plunge first or for the best

Talking about the Community 001 contact with users, merchants, Shaoyuan said, the user level, the Community 001 will be joint suppliers regularly into the community activities, through to provide users with online experience shopping scene, but "is generally a sample show, will not heap too much goods." In terms of Ultra, information such as the price of goods, various costs and so on is "permanent industry secret", the Community 001 is not known, and the most needed information in actual cooperation is two-retail price and inventory information.

Shaoyuan bluntly, because it is difficult to avoid the retail industry's existing virtual inventory and fake inventory problem, for the Community 001, will cause the problem of goods. At the same time, it is difficult to solve the problem because the platform does not intervene too much in the supply chain.

In 2013, the Community 001 won a round of 100 million yuan strategic investment, the funds were mainly used to develop cities. In the face of the recent outside rumors of the B-round financing, the Community 001 aspects only response, the current B-round financing "is starting, will be mainly financial investment."

It is noteworthy that in the development path, the Community 001 and Ding Dong District Two of the difference is obvious. Ding Dong Community before the great effort to expand in the country, but because the integration of the service provider's work on the surface and in the near future business line focused back to Shanghai, to seek change. Community 001 before the main rooted in Beijing model pilot, since March this year, began to replicate the model to the national promotion.

"The thinking of the pavement is more like the internet thinking, the quantity is big, the vertical heavy mode is more like the O2O line thinking." "In response to the above expansion path, Huang to the daily economic news reporter, said community 001 to goods as a breakthrough point, more biased towards the concept of retail, will gradually become the solution of the" last 1 km "solution provider, the community worry-free, ding dong, such as the same PC-side 58 with the city, to serve as the starting point, the development direction is to do service integrators, Now it is still the light information provided. As a whole, the first and the first deep ties are two development logic, the pavement is first fast and slow, deep tie is first slow after fast.

Huang further analysis, said, because there are Dong-dong community expansion too fast, had to shrink the front of the example in the former, after analysis will find that judge a business model is feasible, first choose a specimen city to try, verify feasible, "then expand to be able to not waste costs." In view of this, Ding Dong community in Shanghai did not completely run out of the case to the national expansion, advertising fees, team recruitment and the cost of the local point of waste. "The first is just a superficial scale, but in fact every city is a very shallow layout." "If you want to develop deeper in a single city, you will be hit by a local competitor," he said.